FA Women's National League

let's move on to the Republic of Ireland women's team we've got Lily Ag and she was speaking

yeah so she's managing at the moment in the Women's National League she says she's determined to return to the pitch when she fully recovers from injury Ag is in the final stages now of her rehab from rupturing her knee ligaments last year and is currently managing at Lone Town the Midlanders will look to seal the first leg of a double against Shelburne they're 12 points clear in the league at the moment but they play Shells in Sunday's Women's FAI Cup final Ag was speaking to her own Ross Flanagan earlier and she says she wants to get back into the Ireland squad

You know, I go to bed at night sometimes and I can't believe I'm in this position.

I should probably just be at a club and rehabbing and back ready to play football again.

And with the season just started, I know all of you have been really looking forward to the most.

And Let's start with, you know, how the first few games of the new season of the Women's National League Southeast.

We start with the away against Dartford, which Dulwich have not based since three seasons after they last played each other in the division below.

And they came up as winners, which I'll explain that team changes later on.

And a week later, on the bank holiday weekend, away at Cambridge, which was at a different ground this time, because I went to Cambridge two years ago at the Cambridge United's main ground, not far from the railway station, although this one was more of a lengthy walk to the university grounds, which I like the pitch, 3D pitch, the rugby grounds.

Although Cambridge came away with a 3-2 win, which means Dulwich fell for the 3-2 loss.

And then followed by Dartford again in the Women's National League Cup with a 2-0 win, first win of the season.

And then followed by the week later, which is about a couple of days ago, when Dulwich welcomed Billericay Town with a 4-1 win.

Sligo at the moment eight points adrift at the bottom.

While at Lone Town, now within touching distance of retaining their Women's National League title, Lily Ag's defending champions open up a nine point lead with just four games remaining by beating Treaty United 4-1. on Saturday afternoon

Yeah on the men's side of things just the Premier Division blown wide open as a result of that result on Friday night so very exciting times between now and the end of the season there should mention as well elsewhere tonight we've got Leeds against Newcastle in the Premier League at 8 o'clock and Villareal versus Real Betis where Troy Parrott starts on the bench tonight also at 8 o'clock in La Liga after the break we'll be doing a rundown of the Premier League talking points and we'll be getting stuck into everything that happened at Old Trafford yesterday afternoon the news round on Off The Ball is with Amazon.ie Irish brands at local prices start your search at our dedicated and curated Brands of Ireland section back after the break and before that it's the Cash Machine Welcome back.

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And I mean, OK, Mel Lawley's played there, but you've got, you know, so he looked at most of our defence.

In fact, all of our defence there came up with us from FA Women's National League.

And therefore, it's just that sharpness that comes and that mental sharpness as well, perhaps just wasn't quite there at that point.

Go on, Harvey, I'll let you jump in and then Matt

We'll put the link back in as well for it as well, I'm sure, again.

Most important, though, Matt, is we're both top ten.

Lone Watch, Kiddie, Amelia Hiscox scored an absolute cracking goal in their 1-0 win over Gwalior United in the FA Women's National League League Cup group stage.

Baldmere Sky got 87 minutes in Baldmere's 2-1 win over Villa under-21s.

This is the EFL League, not EFL, NWSL.

No, FA Women's National League.

League Cup group stage.

Taking on Tottenham PGA at Sixfields.

I will be interested to see how Olin deploys her, but I do think that you are right, and I do think that we will see her at center back at some point this season.

Next, The FA approves WSL Academy size of competing in the National League, which is the third division of the pyramid.

However, that is outside of the WPLL, which both WSL and WSL2 fall under.

So far, what we know is that four teams will be able to put their academies in WPL2.

I would imagine that going forward, we will almost definitely hear Arsenal's name in that as well.

And then the other two teams kind of get a little dicey.

And I think part of that is that on on the men's side in fa like you have the eds league which you know all of the all of those academies participate in right whereas this is not most of these clubs are not investing enough in their women's team for their women's team to even have an academy right so right like is is is um So I kind of it's a kind of a double edged sword, because now, like, are you are you creating a competitive imbalance for those teams that are like actual not academy teams in the National Leagues? Or does this give because I think there's been a large push about.

young English players having difficulty breaking into their first-team club and getting minutes at all.

between the 13th place WSL team and the second place WSL two side for the final spot in the top division.

Two teams will be relegated automatically to the FA Women's National League with the winners of the Northern and the Southern Premier coming up.

So you're up to date on all of those changes in case you'd forgotten them while you're on your sun loungers.

We will do a full preview of the team shortly, but there was a big piece of news that happened last week.

But the Barclays WSL 2 does... kick off this weekend a reminder of the two newly promoted sides so Watford and Burnley they kick things off at Vicarage Road Friday night and then on Sunday Durham host Southampton Ipswich Town take on Nottingham Forest Sheffield United host Leicester Sunderland play Bristol City and Newcastle United open against Wolves.

I promise we will go through it.

It is just that there is zero time to fit everything into the pod, as always, because we do need to speak about the FA Women's National League changes because there was news last week that the FA board announced had approved a package of reforms for the FA Women's National League from the 2027-28 season.

So these include clubs receiving central funding for the first time, the introduction of academies, enhancements to the loan market to encourage loans from the professional game to tiers three and four, and then probably the most contentious of the bunch, the fact that four professional game academy sides, so basically those belonging to WSL teams, are going to compete in the league, but they just won't have eligibility for promotion.